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Book Review – Doctor Who: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

Title: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

Series: Doctor Who Novelette Collection

Author: Derek Landy

Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones

Date Reviewed on GoodReads: 07/08/2016

Doctor Who – The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage is another short, little volume in the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary – 12 Doctors, 12 Books collection of mini-books. This one features the Tenth Doctor and his companion Martha Jones. The TARDIS lands in a bank of fog, but when Martha steps out of the TARDIS it immediately becomes a clear and sunny day with grass and trees and such. The Doctor and Martha meet four children – two boys and two girls, and Martha realizes she recognizes them as the Troublemakers – characters from a series of books that she read as a child. Quickly, she realizes that the situation is the same as the first Troublemakers book she ever read, “The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage”.

Martha and the Doctor work to figure out the clues and solve the mystery. When they take a boat down an underground river they are attacked by mysterious beings. They also quickly discover not only who is behind the mystery from the children’s book – but who the real threat is. This threat attacks the Doctor and Martha – causing them to run to escape through a maze of fictional characters and landscapes.

The Doctor confronts the being at the center of everything successfully and he and Martha, ultimately escape.

This story was a bit disappointing – it’s very simple, both in structure and in writing style. The Doctor makes some good points about “The Troublemakers” books and Martha makes some good counter-arguments (the books might not have been that good in an objective sense, but she loved them as a child and they set her on the path of a life-long reader). The descriptions of the Troublemakers books reminded me of Nancy Drew (syndicated series – written by ghost writers), and the characters also reminded me of Scooby Doo (but without a dog), because the Scooby kids included two guys: Fred and Shaggy – two girls: Velma and Daphne and they solved mysteries. Overall, though, the story was about as flat as the type of books and stories it parodied. The ending part, with the reveal of the real villain was slightly better, but not as good as other books in this series.